Route reliability record
ATL→MSY
Atlanta to New Orleans
- Flights
- 4,002
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 425 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,002 ATL to MSY flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.7%, against 81.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,939 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.5% on time across 3,276 flights
These figures cover 4,002 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to MSY
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,276 | 83.5% | 59 min | 1.47% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 106 | 79.8% | 52 min | 1.89% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 342 | 77.9% | 49 min | 0.29% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 275 | 61.2% | 69 min | 2.55% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to MSY
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am193 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am644 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm667 flights87.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,093 flights76.9%
- 5pm–8pm695 flights76.0%
- 8pm–5am710 flights78.3%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.8% of the time, against 76.0% for the evening window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,093 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to MSY by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.0%, a wide gap of 14.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.8%
- 8–11am89.2%
- 11am–2pm87.6%
- 2–5pm76.9%
- 5–8pm76.0%
- 8pm–5am78.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 88.5%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 392 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 43,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 43,057 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 43,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.45% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 425 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 82.2% on time across 4,004 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,002 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSY after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.5% on time and July 66.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,939 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to MSY questions
How often is ATL to MSY delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 4,002 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
81.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.0%, 15 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on ATL to MSY?
July is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 88.5% in September. Across the year that is 22 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to MSY83.5%
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to MSY79.8%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to MSY77.9%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to MSY61.2%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- IAH to MSY, a related route83.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to MSY and MSY to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.